Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro Review

If you're turned off by the all-business persona and lofty price of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, no worries: Lenovo offers the stylish and innovative Yoga 2 Pro as an intriguing alternative. This device is more consumer/prosumer than business, and in addition to multi-touch capabilities, it offers a stunning, super-high-res screen that can be oriented in a variety of ways, transforming the usual into something quite versatile.

I recently declared that the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is the best Ultrabook I've ever used. By way of comparison, I'll describe the Yoga 2 Pro as the best "2-in-1," or transforming PC—it's really a "4-in-1" PC—that I've ever used. Putting this device head-to-head against its X1 Carbon stable mate, it's a photo finish, and depending on your needs and preferences, I could see many opting for the Yoga 2 Pro instead. They are both absolutely first class PCs.

The most obvious and striking thing about the Yoga 2 Pro, at least for my review model, is the colorful "tangerine" exterior, a color I happen to like quite a bit. I could see it turning some people off—no worries, plain black and dull gray are available for the less outgoing—but were I buying this machine, this is the color I'd choose. It screams personality.

The Yoga 2 Pro and X1 Carbon weigh almost exactly the same—3 pounds—but the Yoga 2 Pro packs a 13-inch screen while the X1 has a bigger 14-inch unit, and the Yoga 2 Pro is a bit thicker. Carrying it around in a bag, however, the profile is similar. And in carting this device back and forth to New York, Phoenix, Vermont, and into Boston by virtually every mainstream form of travel available, I found the Yoga 2 Pro to be just as good a travel companion as the X1 Carbon. It takes up little space and isn't heavy to carry.

When you open the device's lid, the differences are similarly subtle. I had expected the 13-inch screen on the Yoga 2 Pro to be problematic, given my predilection for unusual 15-inch Ultrabooks. But possibly since I've been spending much of the past two months going back and forth between this device and the X1, I find the screen size perfectly workable. And switching between the X1 and Yoga 2 Pro has been seamless from a usage perspective.

That is true, in part, because the Yoga 2 Pro exhibits the same pros and cons when it comes to its screen. As with the X1, the Yoga 2 Pro's screen is very bright and glossy—this is apparently what people expect these days, so Lenovo delivers—and it comes with an incredible, Retina display-busting 3200 x 1800 resolution, even higher than the X1's 2560 x 1400. But as with the X1, after futzing with various settings and trying to deal with the fact that some of the desktop applications I use regularly—I'm looking at you, Adobe Photoshop—simply do not work properly at such high resolutions, I've done here what I did to the X1: I've bumped the resolution down, manually, to 1600 x 900.

To me, this is optimal, and a good resolution for a screen of this size. Others may disagree. But what this boils down to is that I spend most of my time in the desktop. And super-high-res simply doesn't work in that environment if you run certain poorly-written applications regularly as I do. Were I to stick to Windows 8.1's "Modern" environment, this wouldn't be an issue. Likewise, if you use well-written desktop applications exclusively, you'll find that the Yoga 2 Pro's screen is best in class, and that the desktop scaling functionality works just fine. In fact, better than fine: The text on onscreen controls is so crisp it looks fake.

Battery life is impressive and is roughly on par with that of the X1 Carbon. I routinely get 7 or more hours of life, and it withstands cross-country flights and long train rides with ease, using my typical combination of work (writing, image processing) and entertainment (videos).

And thanks to its transforming screen, the Yoga 2 Pro is an even better travel companion than the X1. If you're stuck in steerage on a long flight with the seat in front of you jacked back as far as it can go, you can flip the screen around and watch videos in stand mode. Or flip the screen all the way over and use it like a (large and heavy) tablet. This kind of versatility isn't typically required day-to-day but you will appreciate it, and then some, when you need it.

Performance was always excellent. Lenovo packed an Intel Core i7-5400U, 8 GB of RAM, and a large 256 GB SSD into my review unit, and it never skipped a beat. Frankly, that's probably overkill for many, but it's also good from a future-proofing perspective. You'll get your money's-worth from this not inconsiderable investment.

The expansion story is mixed. The Yoga 2 Pro features one USB 3.0 port on the left, and one USB 2.0 port (which can charge devices while the Yoga 2 Pro is off) on the right; why this can't be two USB 3.0 ports is unclear. It also includes a full-sized SD/MMC port (lacking on the X1 Carbon, by the way) and micro-HDMI out. But there's no Ethernet option, so you'll need to get an adapter and eat up a USB port. I did like that it had a power button and volume buttons on the outside edge—so they can be used in any mode. Some will find the power button placement odd—it's very close to the front of the machine—but you get used to it.

The backlit keyboard is superb. I was originally worried about the glossy/slippery nature of the keys, but I adapted quickly and find it quite comfortable. It features none of the weirdness of the X1 keyboard—there's no silly "adaptive function row," just normal keys, thank you very much, and no weird key placements—and has a dedicated Print Screen button. Love it.

Less positive is the trackpad, which is actually thankfully small in these days of SUV-sized pads, but annoyingly capable of picking up palm hits while I'm typing. I spent an inordinate amount of time futzing with the trackpad utility, and came up empty: There is no way to turn it off when there is a mouse connected, which is necessary since the Yoga 2 Pro doesn't feature the X1's excellent "nubbin" pointer alternative. And I couldn't stop it from picking up my palm, no matter how I configured it. As I write this review, the insertion point occasionally jumps to some other point in the text because this terrible trackpad thinks I'm moving it on purpose.

Speaking of disappointment, Lenovo bundles an unnecessary amount of crapware with this device. I'm most alarmed by the number of items that run automatically every time you sign in: Lenovo energy manager, utility, phone companion, transition, picks and other software are all vying for the PC's precious resources, and I have never once wanted or needed any of them. As bad are the useless anti-virus and system checkup utilities and other pointless apps. The PC is just full of crap.

Lenovo used to show amazing restraint in this area, but it's pretty clear that the firm is responding to its new perch atop the PC market as did its predecessors, and it's trying to milk every dollar it can from each machine it delivers to customers. This is a mistake. It's easy enough to remove this stuff, but not so easy for the average person to understand what's needed and what isn't.

Ultimately, however, the device's style and form factor utility outweigh the niggling bits. Where the Yoga 2 Pro excels is in its multiple usage possibilities, and while it is absolutely an Ultrabook first, its ability to transform really does set it apart. And that I'm even comparing this device head-to-head with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is telling: this is a truly versatile machine.

It's not cheap. As reviewed, the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro will set you back $1400, about $400 less than the X1 Carbon I reviewed but still quite expensive. But this is a premium product: It's well-made, durably constructed, and thoughtfully designed.

If that's too expensive for you—understandable—I'll be reviewing the more moderately priced Yoga 2 (non Pro) soon. For now, I can say that the Yoga 2 Pro and ThinkPad X1 Carbon sit in a rarefied place at the top of the portable PC market, each addressing slightly different needs and wants. It's highly recommended, despite the balky trackpad.

Discuss this Article 33

Good review Paul! I love those Yoga devices, but the Pros are waaay out of my price range (humble graduate student here making a joke amount of money...). I saw the Yoga 2 at Best Buy recently and it seemed like an awesome little machine, I'll be waiting for your review! The only downside for me was that I've got used to 2 in 1s so I miss having the option of using a device as tablet/laptop.

Last week you mentioned to Andrew in WTT that you thought the Acer Switch 10 wasn't bad at all, I'm quite interested in it as it's in between a 2-in-1 and a Yoga, which could be perfect for me. Are you planning on reviewing the Switch?

Have had my device for a week now. Delighted. But agree about the crapware. Wow! The sheer amount of stuff is almost unprecedented.
On a more positive note: to put off the trackpad, simply click (what would normally be) the F6 key. Works perfectly.

I don't have problems with palm rejection on the track pad; however, the driver does seem buggy in other ways. Tap-and-a-half selection still does not work well (it often loses what you lasso) and about once every couple of days the trackpad stops responding altogether and a sleep/wake cycle is needed to get it going again.

Don't count on it. Ever since they partnered with Google a couple of years ago, they seem to just have advertising dollars in their sights.

What's worse is that they have taken a lot of lower-cost SMB systems like the ThinkPad Edge, and dropped them in favour of higher-priced versions. So YOU'RE PAYING FOR MORE ADWARE!

That's why I've gotten away from Lenovo lately. Acer seems to have improved their product lineup over a few years ago, and although they have terrible add-on software on many of their systems, at least you aren't paying for it. Their quality is good for the price that you pay, and the system designs have improved dramatically over those of a few years ago that looked extremely cheap and plastic-y. Alternatively, Toshiba has gone the opposite and gotten worse. They've taken that cheap "honeycomb" plastic look and applied it to all kinds of systems that cost as much as Acer's nicer models.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I was in a MS Store a few weeks back and they didn't have one. The salesperson was knowledgeable in general, but she didn't know about the Y2P. Maybe if enough of us request it they will carry it soon.

Regarding your issues with the screen resolution, and in particular with Photoshop: what exactly is the issue with using the scaling setting in Windows? I'm assuming the UI elements in Photoshop such as the palettes and swatches perhaps don't scale properly and come out distorted. Is that the case?

Also, when you resort to dropping the resolution down to 1600x900, does the display look as sharp as a display with a native 1600x900 resolution?

If you can briefly respond to this comment it would be great, but I'd also like to suggest you write a dedicated article explaining and illustrating the issues encountered with high res displays on Windows. Given the new crop of high displays and the apparent limitations of Windows desktop applications in this area, I think it's an important general topic. It would be helpful to those of us in the market for laptops who are uncertain whether or not to go for one with the new high res displays or stick with the safer HD+.

I know with most Adobe programs, the UI elements don't follow Windows standards and refuse to scale, so a 20x20px button stays at 20x20px regardless of DPI scaling. The blame, however isn't so simple. The flexibility of Windows is its undoing here, as developers aren't required to adopt these standards (like with Adobe using custom GUI elements), nor were old programs even built with high-DPI displays in mind. The reality is, we were stuck at 96DPI for a long time, but that's because, until recently, display technology has been quite expensive, and extra pixels were used to make bigger physical screen sizes. HighDPI is still relatively young, so expect the usual growing pains. Anandtech gives a very good writeup on the issue:

That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a few zoomed digital photos of the screen at 1600x900 to see how crisp of an image you get. It does seem like a waste of a good panel though. Surface is livable at 1080P, and it almost seems like most Windows machines should stick to that dimension for a while as a compromise.

I've had the Y2P for 5 months as my main development machine (mostly Visual Studio). I would purchase the same thing again - truly a nice device, light and portable, great keyboard, fantastic screen, fast.

I do occasionally have issues with the wireless card and the auto-rotate feature, but when they occur they're easy to fix. As Paul said, well-designed desktop apps (Office, VS, IE, etc.) work fine with the high resolution/DPI settings. The crispness of text in IE is superb.

I'm pretty much interested to know how Visual Studio behaves on this machine as regards the high resolution and what kind of battery life do you usually achieve in this development mode. VS was converted to WPF in 2010 so scaling should be OK, but I'm interested to see how this works out in real life.

VS 2013 has been great on this machine, in my opinion. No problems with the high resolution that impact my use. I've heard there are a few dialogs that may not yet be properly designed for high DPI settings, but I've not run into them.

Battery life isn't great compared to some other ultrabooks from what I've read. But I went from a cheap (and old) Dell laptop with at best 2 - 3 hours to this, which gets me around 5 - 6. I say around, because I haven't timed it starting at 100% and working non-stop until it drains. I usually take breaks, so that is a guess.

I think the reason they put trial and crapware on pcs is for one reason, the person who's computer illiterate. The computer illiterate person might buy a subscription for McAfee not knowing that its not good.

We purchased an i5 Yoga 2 Pro at launch and overall have been happy with it. However, compared to my Surface Pro, the wifi is weak, doesn't do MiraCast well and the Bluetooth is flaky.

We have tried a couple of Bluetooth mice, but they all lose connection at random times. Also couldn't get Office Remote working with it. My phone paired right away with my Surface Pro, but my wife's phone never would pair with the Yoga 2 Pro.

It really the only flaw we have noticed with it. We also reduced the resolution. Older eyes can't handle the itty bitty desktop elements, but the screen still looks pretty good.

I own a Yoga 2 Pro for the last 5 months. Overall this machine is amazing. It's lightweight, fast, very well constructed and with a very good keyboard & touchpad. Also the screen is amazing but almost non-usable to certain scenarios. Battery life is pretty good, 6-7 hours of normal use, can get up to 8 if used for video streaming with a modern app that supports hardware accelerated video, such us MetroTube.
Also, you can turn off the touchpad by pressing the F6 button, don't know why is this not working for you Paul.
Now on the downsides:
* I had issues with the trackpad as well including not always recognizing my 2 finger clicks especially near the bottom left corner. After some experiments I ended up installing the touchpad driver for the Yoga 2 (not Pro) which is newer than the Pro one and I must admit I'm very happy with the touchpad now, it works almost like a MBP one.
* The wi-fi adapter is single band and at least during the first couple of months create a lot of problems for me with certain access points. Sometimes I would wake up the Yoga from sleep to see that Windows has disabled the adapter in the device manager due to driver issues. The only way to fix that was either a reboot or unistall/reinstall the device from the device manager. At the end I bit the bullet and swapped the adapter with a dual band Intel AC-7260. At the beginning I had similar issues but after a couple of driver updates from Intel it is mostly solid now.Just be careful when ordering a replacement adapter from ebay since only those with a specific FCC ID are whitelisted for use with the Yoga (the first AC-7260 I bought although essentially the same hardware as the second one was blacklisted from the Yoga because it didn't have a valid FCC number)
* The extreme resolution of the screen causes issues with some badly written apps. The problem most of the times lies in the manifest file of the application with falsly reports that is hi-dpi compatible. Anyway, after the recent 8.1 updates and some updates from Adobe most of the CS apps work fine now. Chrome also works OK in hi-dpi mode although font rendering is a mess in some zoom levels.
What is currently unsolvable is the dual screen support. I use my yoga in a dual screen setup very often and what I've found is that with the Yoga resolution at 3200*1800 and the default scaling level (bare in mind I've enabled separate scaling for the second screen) you get HUGE icons and menus on the 2nd screen (which is a lenovo 23'' running at 1920*1200).
At the end I've also switched to 1600*900. It is still sharper than most other laptops but nowhere near as sharp as when running at its native resolution. I am used to it now but the difference is there and is easilly noticeable.

Hi Paul, Engadget just updated their article about the Dell Precision M3800 (3200 x 1800 screen) saying updates to Windows 8.1 and/or Adobe seem to have fixed the scaling issues on high dpi screens, at least for Adobe software. Can you confirm that?

Nothing personal Paul but I don't know why you do so called reviews. You're way late and take to long. One place I like is Mobile Tech Review. Lisa does a pretty good job. There are others that are quicker to get reviews up for new products as well.

And nothing personal to you either, but quickie hardware reviews are crap. Anyone can put a machine through a set of artificial tests and make a few high-level comments about its styling and design. I do the surface level stuff in my "first impressions" article, right up front. Then I actually *use* the device. In the real world. On actual trips, in the case of a portable computer or tablet. And then I write a review. When I can accurately tell you what it's really like.

And nothing personal, but these devices aren't just interesting when they're first released. They have a several-months-long life cycle. There's no need to be first with such a thing, it's not a news story. But if I'm going to put my name on a recommendation, especially for something that costs a bucketload of money like this thing, I intend to be damn-well sure I can actually recommend it. Because when people spend that kind of money and it doesn't live up to what I wrote, they come back to me. And I don't want that. I want to help people not screw them over.

Because, honestly, it is personal.

For those of you who already get this, I'm going to Houston next week for TechEd. I'm taking the 13-inch Lenovo Yoga 2. Guess what my next review will be? You know, after I really use it.

$1400? That's ridiculous. I bought the same model as Lenovo refurbished from Best Buy for $1,110.30 (includes taxes for MA). Couldn't be more happier, it was in excellent shape but had to upgrade the BIOS and a few drivers.

Also, I bought the 7260NGW Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 802.11ac Wifi card from Newegg (avail. on Amazon as well), to replace the stock WiFi card. I'm future proof and will likely replace the SSD, if needed.

"I've done here what I did to the X1: I've bumped the resolution down, manually, to 1600 x 900.

To me, this is optimal, and a good resolution for a screen of this size."

It would be an OK resolution if native, but a 1800p screen downscaled to 900p is much worse than a native 900p screen, because it prevents sub-pixel text rendering (cleartype).

The chasing after numbers is a stupidity which is really lowering the quality of high-end PCs currently. So much better to have a 1080p screen. Instead they've gone from too low res to too high res. Who cares about optimal when reviewers judge you by "big numbers are better".